MuniWireless

The city of Fresno, California recently issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the creation of a citywide wireless broadband network. In the RFP, the city states that it prefers not to spend any money on the network and that all of the costs of the deployment should be borne by the service provider (the private corporate franchise model). Given that this model has failed in a number of cities, prospective bidders submitted questions that revealed their serious reservations about…

The city council of Milpitas, California voted unanimously to take the city’s muni Wi-Fi network back from EarthLink. The city will use the network for municipal use only. The police department has been using a municipal Wi-Fi network since 2004.

The city plans to provide public Internet access at the city council chambers, sports and community centers, but not citywide. The network assets are valued at approximately $800,000, some of which the city is planning to sell. The annual cost of…

Social networking sites like Facebook do have some uses. Several members of Facebook who live in Sonoma County are organizing to change the Sebastopol city council’s decision not to allow Sonic.net (an ISP) to deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network. That decision was based on residents’ fears that Wi-Fi is very dangerous to one’s health (just like the sun’s rays).

The city of Los Gatos, California has unwired its municipal network to provide seamless wireless connectivity around city facilities. The idea is to enable municipal workers to access critical city data and, at the same time, provide free Internet connectivity to the public in those areas.

According to city informtion systems manager Chris Gjerde the network figures prominently into the city’s plan for emergency preparedness. He cited an incident in 1989 when an earthquake rendered the town hall unstable and city officials…

EarthLink’s retreat from the muni-wireless market has left municipalities scrambling for solutions to address their growing need for broadband connectivity. The company’s difficulties exposed the risks of municipalities hitching their broadband dreams to the market aspirations of private broadband providers. 

An interesting editorial in this week’s Eureka Reporter takes a critical look at the efforts of California’s Broadband Task Force to bring connectivity to the under-served communities in that state. “Unfortunately,” it laments, “the Broadband Task Force has chosen the seductive…

Riders on board one of San Francisco’s Muni buses got a taste of free Wi-Fi and informational touch screens this week as the transit authority debuted its  ‘connected bus.’

The bus, which is a green as it is unwired,  had a special guest on board in the form of a Cisco representative to help users with the system. The Wi-Fi connection is routed through a Sprint data network using Cisco equipment.  In addition to providing public service, the system connects to the bus’s operational…